ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND CONSERVATION
BLOCK GRANT (EECBG) PROGRAM
Key Activities Summary
Blueprint 1: Energy Planning
This Key Activities Summary provides a concise overview of the Energy Planning Blueprint. DOE plans to provide technical assistance support to all entities who select this Blueprint, which may include one-on-one attention from DOE or national lab experts, webinars, and peer learning opportunities.
blueprints SCEP
Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant Program
INTRODUCTION
What
A strategic energy plan is a long-term roadmap to focus and guide efforts and actions toward a defined energy vision. Plans catalog existing energy consumption, sources, users, articulates goals, develops strategies and actions to meet the goals, and identifies resources needed to ensure effective completion of these strategies.
A strategic energy plan enables organizations and communities to make decisions that are:
Justice and Equity
» Proactive-by outlining deliberate actions based on clearly articulated government and By seeking input from stakeholders across the community priorities. community and intentionally tailoring engagement opportunities to involve disadvantaged
» Comprehensive-by encompassing a broad scope, based on community priorities, communities and groups that face participation that identifies and pursues high payoff opportunities through coordinated planning and barriers, equitable outcomes can be better sustained effort. identified, prioritized, and incorporated into future energy and infrastructure investments.
» Structured—by providing defined and thoughtfully organized guidance through a specific plan for action.
» Long-term-by supporting decisions that require multi-year investments and/or multiple project and planning stages and identifying a series of steps to undertake as LEAD Tool funds and resources become available. The Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) tool is an interactive map that displays
» Enduring—by establishing a path forward that will maintain relevancy beyond a average energy burden data by state, county, city,
current administration and can include development of policies and procedures to tribal area, or census tract. Data can be sorted by institutionalize energy-saving practices across the organization and over time as staff income level and housing type and illustrates energy burden disparities.
INTRODUCTION
Smart Communities Plan First - Program In a Box
Why
Provided by NASEO and E4TheFuture, the Smart
Communities Plan First - Program In a Box is an
State, local, and tribal governments spend billions of dollars a year on energy to provide example of planning to support municipal investments in clean energy and is structured around designing,
public services and meet constituent needs. In many buildings, energy costs can be developing, and implementing an energy plan.
reduced by 20 percent or more through energy efficiency measures. Governments, organizations, and communities have the potential to reduce waste and reallocate savings by developing a plan that focuses on energy use in their own buildings and operations (e.g., City Hall, public schools, wastewater treatment plants, streetlights, transportation fleet) or in the broader community. Thoughtful goals and thorough planning paired with intentional stakeholder engagement will foster buy-in and can guide public investments towards high value and popular projects.
Energy plans - whether for your organization or for your community - can identify areas of opportunity to reduce energy use and energy waste, switch to different energy sources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, anticipate increased energy needs and associated infrastructure, and/or improve resiliency. By undertaking an energy planning process, organizations and communities can be strategic; instead of undertaking decisions on a reactive or single-project basis.
'Source:
State and Local Government
Energy Financing Primer | Better
Buildings Initiative
KEY ACTIVITIES
Key Activities
a government could take to begin or make progress on their energy planning journey. EECG Program awardees that utilize a blueprint will receive expedited application review from DOE.
Applicants must execute at least one of the key activities listed under each selected blueprint but should avoid going beyond the recommended activities. Going beyond these key activities may trigger additional reviews of your EEC Program project to ensure you're meeting National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), historic preservation, and/or other federal regulations. While each step is important, they should be seen as a guide. Awardees should determine their own priority activities based on their local context.
Stakeholder Engagement, Education, and Outreach
Detailed information about these activities can be found in the Energy Data Collection to Establish a Baseline Guide to Community Energy Strategic Planning resource
document. DOF also has several other tools available that can help ) Develop an Energy Vision, Goals and Strategies to reduce the overall expense of energy planning.
Write, Adopt & Publicize Plan
KEY ACTIVITIES
o° Stakeholder Engagement,
Education, and Outreach
P Key Resource
To develop an energy plan, you will need the support and participation of multiple types Building Your Energy Team of stakeholders. Some will be on your team and will help develop and guide the plan throughout the process; others will inform and shape portions of the plan or specific P Key Resource topics.
Below are a sampling of guides to stakeholder engagement » Set Up Your Team - A strong team, including a champion, project manager, support created by state and local governments:
staff, and possibly consultants, will ensure the energy plan has the internal backing and » Stimulating Energy Efficiency through staff needed to support plan elements as they go into effect once the plan is completed. Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement-Kentucky:
The Kentucky Department for Energy Development and
» Identify and Engage Stakeholders - Engaging stakeholders to collect input, Independence's 'Stimulating Energy Efficiency Action' program (SEE KY) engaged more than 80 stakeholders
opinions, priorities and reactions will ensure the energy plan is human-centered and to promote energy efficiency to meet growing energy focused on issues that matter most to constituents. Create a review panel, hold a virtual demands. meeting, ask for formal public comments, or just share a draft with key community » Designing Equity-Focused Stakeholder members. Bottom line - get some feedback on your plan prior to publication! Start by Engagement to Inform State Energy Office mapping your stakeholders - identify who they are, when you will request input during Programs and Policies (NASEO): The State Energy Planning Guidelines assists state energy directors in
your planning process, and when and how progress updates will be provided. developing state energy plans. It is a reference guide for integrating equity, inclusion, and access into state energy policy and program design and implementation.
KEY ACTIVITIES
Energy Data Collection to
Establish a Baseline
Developing an understanding of how your community uses energy and the sources of its fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions is the first step to energy planning. It's important to know which data sets are available to help your community establish a baseline and measure progress towards your goals.
P Key Resource
SLOPE tool data viewer illustrates several modeled datasets at the state and county levels, including energy consumption and transportation fuel use, energy efficiency and renewable SLOPE Tool energy potential, social vulnerability index, energy burden data, and clean energy job estimates. The State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) Platform is an easy-to-access online
P Key Resource platform to support data-driven state and local energy planning. SLOPE includes two distinct tools
Utilities may be able to provide consumption data at the jurisdiction level to support planning needs:
aggregated by sector. Contact your energy providers to confirm. » Scenario Planner: Compare scenarios for the future of energy, costs, and emissions for
counties and states.
? Case Study
» Data Viewer: Explore city, county, and state data
City Energy: From Data to Decisions on renewables, efficiency, and transportation.
KEY ACTIVITIES
Develop an Energy Vision,
Goals and Strategies
This step is the "meat & potatoes" of energy planning. Tangible long-term goals and nearer-term strategies provide a pathway from the conceptual energy vision to concrete, cost-effective actions. Prioritizing strategies and aligning them with potential funding sources will result in an actionable plan.
P Key Resource P Key Resource
SLOPE Tool Scenario Planner EECG Program Blueprints
The other blueprints focus on individual strategies and actions that are often included in energy plans. Consider these as starting points or additions to your plan.
? Case Study
The City of Knoxville, TN (population 180,000) set a goal to reduce its energy intensity by 20% by 2020.
Facing the prospect of failing to reach this goal due to the lack of a unified plan to implement energy efficiency improvements, the mayor launched the Energy and Sustainability Task Force in 2007 made up of local private and community leaders and City department heads to begin shaping the City's sustainability program. To help them develop their plan, they used a national non-profit's online inventory tools to quantify their baseline energy use, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. Read more about the project here:
Knoxville, TN: Designing a Comprehensive Energy Plan | Better Buildings Initiative
KEY ACTIVITIES
Write, Adopt & Publicize Plan
The last phase of the planning process is to prepare a plan, present it for formal adoption, and publicize it to the broader community. This plan is a roadmap for you to understand your state/community's energy future, where things stand today, set your long-term vision, and articulate the goals, strategies, and actions you will take to achieve that vision.
It also incorporates the implementation blueprint, including responsible parties, timelines, financing strategy, and process for tracking progress.
P Key Resource
Guide to Community Energy Strategic Planning
Next Steps to Get Started
Indicate your interest in energy planning by emailing the DOE EECG Program at [email protected] and join an EECBG Program Energy Planning cohort.
DOE can help connect you with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Learn More Be to receive free technical assistance to begin your planning journey. Department of Energy | EECBG Program